Boulders in the Superstitions

[Phil]

Reminds me of when I seen Bigfoot years ago.

Was elk hunting in a wilderness area and 10 miles from the trailhead. Hunted hard all day and was exhausted. Had dinner, and read the bible for awhile before crashing. Just as I was almost asleep something walked into camp and started wheezing really loud. It walked around for awhile then up the hill where it started breaking branches and rolling rocks down the hill. I stayed up all night.

Usually take off hunting before daybreak, but decided to look around for tracks. Nothing......Which made me even more worried.

Took off and hunted all day, but came back to camp before dark. Went through my usual routine.....Had dinner, read the bible, and just got into the sleeping bag when it came back. Same thing, heavy wheezing sound and it started walking around again. I was exhausted and decided I was not having another sleepless night. So.........quietly got out of my bag and very slowly unzipped the door on my tent and turned my headlamp on.

It was about 20 feet away and looked right at me. It stood there for about 30 seconds before running off up the hill.

Now, all of you may laugh and say I was smoking some of that payote, but contrary to what you hear, Bigfoot is not a mean looking creature. In fact, I swear on my life, Bigfoot looks EXACTLY like a YUGE mule deer doe.

I have never lost any sleep in the mountains since that night now that I know Bigfoot is a vegetarian.

 

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[Idahodutch]

Terry,
That is one heck of a boulder story.
Can you remember the sounds?
Boulder that size... you might have felt it through the ground too.

 

[Crow]

Reminds me of when I seen Bigfoot years ago.

Was elk hunting in a wilderness area and 10 miles from the trailhead. Hunted hard all day and was exhausted. Had dinner, and read the bible for awhile before crashing. Just as I was almost asleep something walked into camp and started wheezing really loud. It walked around for awhile then up the hill where it started breaking branches and rolling rocks down the hill. I stayed up all night.

Usually take off hunting before daybreak, but decided to look around for tracks. Nothing......Which made me even more worried.

Took off and hunted all day, but came back to camp before dark. Went through my usual routine.....Had dinner, read the bible, and just got into the sleeping bag when it came back. Same thing, heavy wheezing sound and it started walking around again. I was exhausted and decided I was not having another sleepless night. So.........quietly got out of my bag and very slowly unzipped the door on my tent and turned my headlamp on.

It was about 20 feet away and looked right at me. It stood there for about 30 seconds before running off up the hill.

Now, all of you may laugh and say I was smoking some of that payote, but contrary to what you hear, Bigfoot is not a mean looking creature. In fact, I swear on my life, Bigfoot looks EXACTLY like a YUGE mule deer doe.

I have never lost any sleep in the mountains since that night now that I know Bigfoot is a vegetarian.

Gidday Amigo

Grab a beer I pull up a seat around the campfire I have a yarn for ya.

I spent a life time camping out in wild and places all over the globe. Perhaps that is why my back is f....er ya know what I going to say. too many years sleeping on the ground. And I swear tree roots find me.

I had a strange encounter in the coastal ranges in N.S.W in Australia the 1980's. To you guys if may be been what you call a "bigfoot" or "Sasquatch" among other names. The Aboriginal tribes have several . The most popular name is "Yowie" or "Yahoo" in aboriginal Eloura tongue or in native Koori. But they all mean the same thing "wild hairy man" It was one of the predominate legends of aboriginal "dream time" One of the first stories the settlers heard of from the natives. That these creatures live in remote locations in the primeval forests of the mountains. The natives was terrified of them.

Getting back to the yarn amigos. Growing up in 60's I had camped at the location many a times with my family used to go there to sift through alluvial gravels for sapphires, zircons, diamond and rubies. All was low quality but occasionally some one would find some thing of value. For the most part for families would go there to sift for gemstones. Came and dig holes tracing the original gravel of the old river bed. Being a kid it was like being a pig in s*** An awesome time amigos. But the powers to be did not like families having fun. They banned it make the place into a national park banned just about everything and blocked off all the roads.

So there it was now in 80's I took a mate camping there for a weekend to drink beer, sit in small river and sift for gemstones. And later have swim in a pool of a small waterfall a almost forgotten and unknown location to many. Sadly today with snap chat, twitter these places are now flooded with idiots.

You can see the waterfall below.



Above the water fall is another waterhole about the size of an Olympic swimming pool. Its was an excellent place to swim. The waterhole was quite deep but if ya could reach the bottom and scrape the sand and gravels many gemstone could be found filtering down the creek into this deep waterhole below.



And the old alluvial workings are along the creek that feeds into it. Many a child memories ratting through banks looking for gemstones. To the left in the picture of the creek below was the camp ground virtually overgrown. There was no one else around.



One the left was alluvial workings. Now totally overgrown. Well it was in the old camping ground we set camp we had to bush bash to get to, setting up tents, making a campfire and park our old FWD. Well had quite a few brews amigo until the firewood ran out and fire did down. We had run out BS stories to tell we finally crashed. It was later about 2 am, Some thing strange happened?

I could hear my mate snoring in his tent....But the light went on inside the old FWD and just before that you could hear the sound of some one lifting the door handle up. I had a firearm in the tent with me. But being snuggled up in the sleeping bag , you know like Egyptian mummy type is not easy to get out of with out making noise. But the time I had gotten my sorry ass out the tent whatever had made the noise and opened the door of FWD had fled. The strange thing was it was not the sound of some body running? It was a romping sound like some things was making huge leaps and bounds through the dark bush crashing into trees and snapping saplings in its path.

My mate heard what ever it was crashing through the bush in the distance. Now we know the sounds of native animals and we tried to think perhaps a kangaroo, deer, wombat? Or some hermit living in the bush trying to steal out of the FWD?

The strange this is amigo no animals I know of at least can open a vehicle door? So in the end we returned to sleep somewhat baffled. The next day was Sunday and when we was packing up in afternoon we came across foot prints in the sand and gravel near the Fwd. My mate Phil has big feet, In fact all our other mates had a nickname for him "Slabs" Because of exceptionally big feet. He placed his foot near the foot print and his foot looked like child's foot.

Whatever we disturbed that night was big and agile enough leap and bound through thick dense bush?

We could never come to any conclusion what it was? That was only time in hundreds of times I have ever experienced anything like this camping out in the mountains.

Brew Amigos

Crow

 

[coazon de oro]

A laughing scream off in the distance, middle of night, while camping in the Supers,
.... would creep anyone out.

I probably wouldn’t have been able to go back to sleep.... for a while.
Just would have laid there looking at the door of the tent

Sounds to me like you heard a fox.

 

[sdcfia]

Below is my 40-year exploration buddy D's bigfoot experience. I trust his truthfulness, especially since together 10 years ago we both witnessed a so-called "thunderbird" in New Mexico. This is a 20-foot+ wingspan bird of some sort - but that's another story. Anyway, we were talking cryptozoology after the bird sighting when the topic of bigfoot came up. "You don't need to convince me," said D. "I know it's real."

Late 1960s in northern California. Marble Mountain Wilderness. Long hike, D with pal B into Lost Lake for fishing trip. This is about 22 miles SE of the infamous Bluff Creek. The two got to the lake in the late afternoon and set up camp on a sandbar next to the water, collected a large pile of firewood for a multi-day stay and prepared for the night.

The first sign of trouble was the screams. "Like nothing we'd ever heard. Our hair stood up. We were stunned and frozen. It was getting dark and the sound wasn't far away in the trees. We already had a fire going and we threw more wood on it. Lots more."

At dark, small rocks and branches began to be thrown at them from the trees about 50 feet away. D and B couldn't see who or what was doing the throwing. They got firebrands out of the campfire and waved them like torches. The two were unarmed - "The last time that ever happened!" Then the big rocks started coming - 10-pounders or bigger from the trees. "Now we're scared ****less."

Things quieted down during the night, but the two remained wide awake next to the fire until dawn. Then more rocks came at them and for the first time they could make out a silhouette in the trees doing the throwing. "It never completely showed itself openly, but we could see that it was huge and dark. How tall? I don't know, but we're both 6 feet and this thing made us us feel like little kids. From what we could see, its head seemed to sit directly on its shoulders - no neck. Pick up a 10-pound rock some time and see how far you can throw it. This thing was throwing them 50 feet!" Then the creature seemed to move further away from them back into the trees and things got calmer.

D and B had made a plan during the long night. They separated all their gear into two piles. The first was their packs filled only with extra clothes, their sleeping bags, trail mix and a canteen of water. Everything else - cookware, more food, tools, bulky or heavy things - they were going to abandon. At sunup, they carefully began to inch away from their camp and back toward the trail they came in on the day before. "Talk about looking over your shoulder! We were moving as slow and as carefully as we could. After a couple hundred yards we figured the thing wasn't following, so we double-timed our usual pace, always fearing the thing would follow us. But it didn't, and after a couple miles we finally relaxed a little. We didn't stop until we reached the vehicle."

They drove to a Forest Service station at Weaverville and reported their experience to the ranger. All the ranger said was, "Yeah, this is becoming a problem around here."

 

[Terry Soloman]

Terry,
That is one heck of a boulder story.
Can you remember the sounds?
Boulder that size... you might have felt it through the ground too.

Oh yes! The ground shook and the crashing echoed through the canyon!

 

[markmar]

Below is my 40-year exploration buddy D's bigfoot experience. I trust his truthfulness, especially since together 10 years ago we both witnessed a so-called "thunderbird" in New Mexico. This is a 20-foot+ wingspan bird of some sort - but that's another story. Anyway, we were talking cryptozoology after the bird sighting when the topic of bigfoot came up. "You don't need to convince me," said D. "I know it's real."

Late 1960s in northern California. Marble Mountain Wilderness. Long hike, D with pal B into Lost Lake for fishing trip. This is about 22 miles SE of the infamous Bluff Creek. The two got to the lake in the late afternoon and set up camp on a sandbar next to the water, collected a large pile of firewood for a multi-day stay and prepared for the night.

The first sign of trouble was the screams. "Like nothing we'd ever heard. Our hair stood up. We were stunned and frozen. It was getting dark and the sound wasn't far away in the trees. We already had a fire going and we threw more wood on it. Lots more."

At dark, small rocks and branches began to be thrown at them from the trees about 50 feet away. D and B couldn't see who or what was doing the throwing. They got firebrands out of the campfire and waved them like torches. The two were unarmed - "The last time that ever happened!" Then the big rocks started coming - 10-pounders or bigger from the trees. "Now we're scared ****less."

Things quieted down during the night, but the two remained wide awake next to the fire until dawn. Then more rocks came at them and for the first time they could make out a silhouette in the trees doing the throwing. "It never completely showed itself openly, but we could see that it was huge and dark. How tall? I don't know, but we're both 6 feet and this thing made us us feel like little kids. From what we could see, its head seemed to sit directly on its shoulders - no neck. Pick up a 10-pound rock some time and see how far you can throw it. This thing was throwing them 50 feet!" Then the creature seemed to move further away from them back into the trees and things got calmer.

D and B had made a plan during the long night. They separated all their gear into two piles. The first was their packs filled only with extra clothes, their sleeping bags, trail mix and a canteen of water. Everything else - cookware, more food, tools, bulky or heavy things - they were going to abandon. At sunup, they carefully began to inch away from their camp and back toward the trail they came in on the day before. "Talk about looking over your shoulder! We were moving as slow and as carefully as we could. After a couple hundred yards we figured the thing wasn't following, so we double-timed our usual pace, always fearing the thing would follow us. But it didn't, and after a couple miles we finally relaxed a little. We didn't stop until we reached the vehicle."

They drove to a Forest Service station at Weaverville and reported their experience to the ranger. All the ranger said was, "Yeah, this is becoming a problem around here."

View attachment 1887192

Hi Steve

A similar story told by Wayne Tuttle

 

[sdcfia]

Hi Steve

A similar story told by Wayne Tuttle

Interesting story. I took that 260 highway thru Payson last week heading towards Globe. It's a big pine forest in there.

 

[Idahodutch]

NE of Payson, back in at the base of the Mogollon Rim, was a Boy Scout camp, might still be there.
Anyway, tales of the Mogollon Monster were being told in late 1960’s, and my oldest brother made sure to relay the stories. He said he was visualizing a type of abominable snowman of sorts, except one that lives in North America.
He was always saying stuff though.

I don’t know when the stories started, floating around the scout camp?

 

[KANACKI]

Hola amigos

Many years ago I heard an interesting story.

It was from a environmental field researcher. Here is his story in his own words below.

I was studying the fauna of the Papua New Guinean rainforest with biologists at the Wau Ecology Institute, a field station of the Bishop Museum of Hawaii. Over a one-year period I recorded fauna species, primarily birds, and their behavior, with an ornithologist, Thane Pratt, on the slopes of Mount Missim in undisturbed Castanopsis Oak rainforest at Poverty Creek, at an elevation of 1500 metres (4,900 feet).

On 25 November 1973 at Vickery Creek, Mount Missim, at 1,200 metres (3937 feet) elevation, I was walking along an old logging track towards a bird hide in which Thane Pratt was observing nesting superb fruit dove. It was then that I observed a dark bipedal figure crossing the track 200 metres (656 feet) in front of me. At first I took it to be a native Melanesian but was surprised to see no sign of clothing at this high altitude, no weapons and the unusual fact that he was alone and that the figure did not walk or even glance along the track but instead moved through dense vegetation traveling down the slope.

It was about 5.5 feet high & very human-like & it walked back & forth looking down towards Thane before continuing down towards him. When I reached the hide there was no sign of the figure & Thane had not observed the figure as he was sitting further down hill. It was a great mystery to me as to the identification of a human-like figure paying no attention to the track that it was crossing. We never encountered any other individuals during the many months of fauna surveys in this remote, high altitude, undisturbed environment.

On 6, 14 and 19 December 1973 and on 16 and 25 October 1974 we heard during daylight, very loud and powerful mammal calls. These consisted of a series of deep, base notes repeated without variations over a period of 5 seconds that produced a bellowing-roar clearly audible through the rainforest from perhaps a kilometer (0.6 miles) away. At one instance I was standing on a rock outcrop above the trees and clearly heard the calls emanating from a forested valley approximately 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) below me. We had particularly specialized in the identification of fauna from their calls so were surprised to hear powerful calls that sounded to my ears as primate-like.

Having spent some time listening to the vocalizing of chimpanzees, gibbon and other primates at Taronga Zoological Gardens in Sydney, I was forced to the conclusion that I was listening to the calls of a very large and powerful primate. As Papua New Guinea has an Australian faunal assemblage with no primates I found it hard to believe that such a creature as I was hearing could exist. I had read newspaper articles of Yetis and Bigfoot in the Northern Hemisphere but had never heard of unknown primate bipeds in this part of the world.

So Amigos it must of been a mysterious encounter for such a scientific researcher to admit to.

Many of the major islands or island groups in the vicinity of New Guinea can lay claim to reports of man-beasts - such as the yowie in Australia, maero or macro in New Zealand, orang pendek in Sumatra, batutut in Borneo, and mumulou in the Solomon Islands.

Are they all myths and legends?

Or is there something we do not know about lurking in depths of wild places around the world?

I have never encountered such a being myself but encountered as kid playing at my parents house in Rabaul a large bat like bird in the dark about 5t tall wing span about 10 foot plus. Land down the side of the house then flew off. The natives call it a Ropen. Yet officially no interest by science. No one really believed me but I saw what I saw. I remembered it as clear as I first saw it.

However because of that encounter I keep an open mind to such stories.

Kanacki

 

[sdcfia]

For those who would like a well-researched and interesting perspective on the subject, especially the creatures' connection to Native Americans, I would recommend two books by former police investigator David Paulides: Tribal Bigfoot, and The Hoopa Project. I would also highly recommend the YouTube channel of M.K. Davis for remarkable analysis of the Patterson-Gimlan film.

I found some interesting material in Tribal Bigfoot mentioning events around the town of Bena, MN. Back in 2015 I was taking care of family business in northern MN and decided to check out Bena. It's a Chippewa village of about a hundred people straddling two large lakes - Leech Lake (150 square miles) and Lake Winnibigoshish (90 square miles). This part of the world is mostly pine forest, lakes and wetlands - not a lot of people. Residents of Bena eke out a living mostly by gathering wild rice, guiding fisherman and collecting monthly checks.

I found a cafe at the crossroads and went in for a cup of coffee. I was the only customer and struck up a conversation with the waitress, a Chippewa tribal member. I mentioned the large plaster footprint casts on the wall of the cafe and she said, "Oh, those are the forest giants. Our people see them once in a while when we harvest the raspberries." She recalled various anecdotes about the creatures and mentioned the researchers who occasionally ask about them. "There's not much to say about them," she said. "They've always been here. We don't bother them and they don't bother us."

 

[Crow]

For those who would like a well-researched and interesting perspective on the subject, especially the creatures' connection to Native Americans, I would recommend two books by former police investigator David Paulides: Tribal Bigfoot, and The Hoopa Project. I would also highly recommend the YouTube channel of M.K. Davis for remarkable analysis of the Patterson-Gimlan film.

I found some interesting material in Tribal Bigfoot mentioning events around the town of Bena, MN. Back in 2015 I was taking care of family business in northern MN and decided to check out Bena. It's a Chippewa village of about a hundred people straddling two large lakes - Leech Lake (150 square miles) and Lake Winnibigoshish (90 square miles). This part of the world is mostly pine forest, lakes and wetlands - not a lot of people. Residents of Bena eke out a living mostly by gathering wild rice, guiding fisherman and collecting monthly checks.

I found a cafe at the crossroads and went in for a cup of coffee. I was the only customer and struck up a conversation with the waitress, a Chippewa tribal member. I mentioned the large plaster footprint casts on the wall of the cafe and she said, "Oh, those are the forest giants. Our people see them once in a while when we harvest the raspberries." She recalled various anecdotes about the creatures and mentioned the researchers who occasionally ask about them. "There's not much to say about them," she said. "They've always been here. We don't bother them and they don't bother us."

View attachment 1887450

Gidday sdcfia

Excellent post.

Crow

 

[Crow]

Getting back to Mogollon Rim story Marius posted.

The bit where the story teller tells of a strange encounters in a very small remote village or hamlet. Where everyone stops and stares at you? And you get that iconic movie feeling of deliverance? That guitar music starts twanging in your head?

It seems a universal one amigos.

In the days when I was water drilling I went to a lot of remote rural villages or hamlets with diddly squat population so remote they almost did not believe anyone lived outside of their village and look and stare at you as if your from outer space. I remember my boss at the time used to hum under his breath the guitar theme of deliverance.

It is a very strange phenomena amigos.

Crow

 

[sdcfia]

Getting back to Mogollon Rim story Marius posted.

The bit where the story teller tells of a strange encounters in a very small remote village or hamlet. Where everyone stops and stares at you? And you get that iconic movie feeling of deliverance? That guitar music starts twanging in your head?

It seems a universal one amigos.

In the days when I was water drilling I went to a lot of remote rural villages or hamlets with diddly squat population so remote they almost did not believe anyone lived outside of their village and look and stare at you as if your from outer space. I remember my boss at the time used to hum under his breath the guitar theme of deliverance.

It is a very strange phenomena amigos.

Crow

Ha ha, good one. Reminds me of driving cross-country with my girlfriend, New Mexico to Iowa in the mid-70s. Went through Liberal, Kansas (how ironic) and we were hungry. Stopped in at a downtown diner. The place was packed with locals and a cacophony of chatter, laughter, dish clatter, etc. A huge loud buzz of happy people. Must be a great place to eat. Me - long hair. My girlfriend - dressed like Janis Joplin. The place went dead silent instantaneously, and a hundred eyeballs were burning holes in us. Not a word spoken, except by me to her: "Looks full, let's try that McDonald's up the street."

 

[Idahodutch]

I’m very glad that apparently there have not been more boulder incidents.
I hadn’t heard talk of Mogollon Monster outside of boys out camp, prior to Treasurenet, and that was interesting.
And there seems to be a fair amount of open mindedness about “Big Foot” or by whatever local name is used.
I have never ran across any evidence, that I was aware of
However, there are a lot of very similar stories, sightings, etc ... and a whole lot of remote, rugged wilderness. . . . also, want as we might, we don’t know everything

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all those boulder dodgers, and sharers of stories!
Idahodutch

 

[Crow]

Story of stone throwing is interesting.

I have an account of an alleged "Yowie" big foot encounter in Australia in 1892.

The account of the stockmen’s ordeal on Kangaroo Hills station, 60 kilometres north east of Armidale, NSW, was published in The Maitland Mercury & Hunter River General Advertiser on 11 February 1892.

The letter began:


“Please publish the enclosed account of an adventure which happened to four men while out mustering cattle on the lower end of the Kangaroo Hills run, and I may mention the account is perfectly true, and can be verified on application to the manager of the Kangaroo Hills station.

On January 29[SUP]th[/SUP], a party of four stockmen went down to the lower end of the run to muster cattle, and fixed their camp on the Day’s River, about half a mile above the Bar. Just as it was getting dark they were fishing opposite a big, steep spur of the mountain, which ran right to the edge of the water in a very precipitous manner. They had been fishing about half an hour when they were startled by a heavy splash in the water, right in front of them, like a large stone being thrown in.”

According to the account, this first splash was quickly followed by two more. Naturally, each of the four men thought one of the others was responsible. One of the men called out to his companions to stop throwing stones as it would frighten the fish. All men denied throwing the stones. Then, three more stones splashed into the river close by the men. They now became alarmed. Was someone having fun with them?


Who’s throwing stones over there?” one of the men called out. There was no answer. Then they heard something moving on the rocks above them.

“Presently, another stone fell right at the feet of one of them, splashing the water all over him. They all jumped up and made back to the fire as fast as they could, and then began to talk matters over, and wonder who had thrown the stones, when they distinctly heard the steps of some heavy two-legged creature crossing over the gravelly bed of the river, and coming towards them.


“They were so startled that they began to prepare for a hasty flight, if necessary, and were busily engaged in strapping their swags on to their saddles, when a heavy stone, evidently thrown from a, short distance, came with terrific force and struck the fire, scattering it in all directions. The men instantly seized their bridles, and ran to where their horses were feeding, about 200 yards away, and found them snorting and in a terrified state.

They caught and mounted them bareback; then, after holding a consultation, decided to go back to the camp and get their saddles if possible.


“They found no one at the camp, and were in the act of saddling their horses when some more stones were thrown at them; they mounted their horses and galloped off into the bush. After they had gone about a mile up the river they stopped, and were speculating what it was that had startled them so, when, in about ten minutes, another stone fell about six yards from them. This one was evidently thrown from a long distance.”

They galloped off again up the river, and did not stop till they had gone several miles. The country through which they were riding was very mountainous, being about the roughest of the Day’s River gulfs, and they ran great risk of breaking their necks riding over it at such a pace on a dark night. “On arriving at the junction of Kangaroo Hills Creek and the Day’s River they stopped again, and thought that at all events, by this time, they had given the animal – whatever it was – the slip; and indeed he troubled them no more for about an hour, when the horses began to snort, and tried to break away.

At this instant a stone was thrown with great force, and struck the ground in front of them, passing quite close to the head of one man. They galloped off again, and crossing the river rode up … a steep spur of the mountain. When they had nearly reached the top their horses began to get exhausted, and they were compelled to stop.


“They remained there for some hours, and, just as daylight was approaching, thought they were at last in safety, and were preparing for three to sleep, while one kept watch, when presently one of the men distinctly saw the form of a large creature, resembling a man, being about the same height, but much larger in the body, standing about 50 yards above them, on the spur they had been going up, and was directly in front of them, preventing them from going any farther.
“He stood for a moment in a clear place between the trees, and could be distinctly seen against the sky, in the pale light of coming day. He stood only for an instant, and then moved slowly and silently down the hill. All this time the horses were very fidgety, and snorting as if they smelt something they were afraid of.


“Presently they could see the animal sneaking quietly up the hill towards them, and this time on one side. They galloped off again down the spur. There were no stones thrown till they were in motion, when several flew swiftly past them, and they narrowly escaped being hit by some.


“The animal followed them for a short distance, and then, after throwing one more stone, made off up a very steep spur, a place no horse could possibly climb, and they saw no more of him.” At last, after being stalked from dusk till dawn, the stockmen’s terrifying ordeal was over.


And according to the writer of the letter, this account was an honest recollection of what had happened to the four stockmen on that night.


“The four unhappy men who were chased about all night, in this singular manner, are all quiet, reliable men, not given to romancing, and no-one here doubts their story, as they all assert it is positively true, and are prepared to swear this account is true in every particular, and not exaggerated in any detail.

Was there any truth to the story? Who knows perhaps a campfire yarn or some thing unexplained? But what you may find interesting is that stone throwing big foot stories are not a 2oth century invention or solely an American one?

Brew

Crow

 

[BillA]

Ha ha, good one. Reminds me of driving cross-country with my girlfriend, New Mexico to Iowa in the mid-70s. Went through Liberal, Kansas (how ironic) and we were hungry. Stopped in at a downtown diner. The place was packed with locals and a cacophony of chatter, laughter, dish clatter, etc. A huge loud buzz of happy people. Must be a great place to eat. Me - long hair. My girlfriend - dressed like Janis Joplin. The place went dead silent instantaneously, and a hundred eyeballs were burning holes in us. Not a word spoken, except by me to her: "Looks full, let's try that McDonald's up the street."

every eye and dead silence, the rejection / hostility palpable
quite the experience
Went out to dinner with the gf and on the way home stopped by some friends having a party, SF in the '60s so you know what's coming. The hostess met us at the door and said "Oh hi Julie, come on in". The house was packed and as I entered there was total silence. That lasted untill I got to the kitchen with the Butches in black playing poker who told me where I needed to be and offered to escort me.
yea l know, had short hair (and was the only male)

 

[Crow]

Gidday Bill

I guess telling them your a les.....trapped in a mans body did not work.

Crow

 

[BillA]

wouldn't help, raised a WASP, 6'2", short hair - I suspect for Julie I was a trophy male and she was trolling her girlfriends
and no, I did not understand that at the time

 

[PotBelly Jim]

An interesting thread. I’m not one to believe in the existence of “Cryptids”, but something happened to me in November of 1994 that’s pretty similar to some of the stories here and similar to a story I was told about the Four Peaks and Superstitions area.

I was deer hunting during the regular rifle season in the James River Face Wilderness (Virginia). There were 3 of us, and we decided to climb up Big Hellgate Creek early one morning so we could hunt the ridge line later in the afternoon.

We ran into a hunter just before entering the gorge, who told us he was going up later to hunt bear. He said there was a “bear up there” that had been “throwing boulders” down towards people in the gorge, and asked us if we’d seen a bear up there. We had been hunting the area the last few days but had stayed in the low areas, and this was our first trip to the top of the mountain. So we told him we’d keep an eye out, then headed up the gorge.

It was slow going as it was extremely cold, there were pools of water in the canyon which had to be negotiated, and the gorge was full of boulders the size of houses. It was such rough going that one of our party decided to get out of the gorge and just scale the cliff all the way to the top, then walk a ridge line up to the top of the mountain. Myself and one other hunter stayed in the gorge, and we eventually ran into a section with such deep water that we couldn’t get by without my buddy slipping and falling in. He was completely soaked, with air temps in the teens, I knew we had to turn around and go back. We built a fire and “roasted” his clothes so he could make it back without hyping out. This took about an hour or so, and we headed back down the gorge as fast as we could, hoping to get out in time to hunt the lower areas at the mouth of the gorge before sunset.

It was then that the first boulder came down the cliff near us. We couldn’t see up to the top of the canyon so we didn’t know how/why they were coming down. I would say they were about the size of basketballs. This kept up for about an hour as we scrambled down the gorge, one boulder every five or ten minutes. Whatever it was, kept up with our downward progress, as no matter how much ground we covered the boulders were always coming down on top of us.

We were almost out of the gorge when we ran into the hunter we saw earlier that told us a bear was up there rolling boulders onto people in the gorge. We reported that we hadn’t seen the bear, but we had definitely seen the falling rocks and to be careful. I was still skeptical that it was an animal doing it.

The boulders stopped when we ran into the other hunter. He continued up the gorge, we went down. When we got out, my buddy was suffering but somewhat dry, so he went about a half mile away to hunt the east side, I went and hunted the west side. We had about an hour before sunset.

Neither one of us saw any deer worth shooting and as was our practice, we both waited until about a half-hour after sundown to start coming down out of the mountains. We did this as to not spook the deer by allowing them to see us and recognize us as humans. That way anyone hunting the area in the morning would have a better chance.

Since we were always quiet moving through the woods, I was surprised to hear what I knew to be my buddy crashing around on the other hill. It was dark, so I heard rather than saw him come off the mountain and down into the creek bed. He was extremely noisy and moving quickly so I stopped and waited before I went down into the creek bed for safety reasons. So I waited for about 20 minutes after I last heard any activity from him.

What was strange, he didn’t head back to the truck, but seemed to be making a beeline straight through the woods, off-trail, back our camp site about 1.5 miles away. I figured he must’ve gotten cold and needed a fire ASAP, so after I couldn’t hear him anymore, I waited awhile to let the woods settle, then I headed down to get the truck and drive back to camp.

I got down into the creek bed, which was hard going because of all the stones, and eventually made it up to the trail that paralleled the creek bed back to where I’d parked the truck. As I started down the trail, I heard what I thought was another hunter walking in the creek bed behind me and to my left. I could hear the big stones clonking together as someone stepped on them.

I figured it was our fellow hunter or the guy that had gone up earlier looking for the bear. I couldn’t be sure, and as I’d heard a lot of gunshots at night in those woods, I knew poachers were night hunting in the area. So I started whistling loudly as I walked, as deer don’t whistle and even a poacher could figure that out.

The guy was about 100 feet behind me, and as I started whistling, he left the creek bed, angling up towards me on the trail. So I stopped and waited, curious as to who it was. I could hear his progress through the dry leaves on the ground but it was pitch black so I couldn’t see him. When he got close, I took my flashlight out and lit it in his direction.

Here’s where it gets weird. I saw nothing, nada, not so much as a squirrel. Just bare trees and leaves on the ground, rocks. Whatever it was, took off at an angle and instead of walking normally as I had been hearing, it ran away and I could hear it had about a 25 foot stride while running and covered ground much, much faster than humanly possible, or any other animal in those woods for that matter. But I could tell it was on two legs, not four. I tried to follow the sound with my light, as it was only about 20 feet from me. I could hear it, but couldn’t see it.

It got ahead of me and back down in the creek. I started walking back down the trail, listening as it paralleled me down in the creek bed. I could hear the sounds of rocks clonking on each other as it stepped on them. Definitely something on two legs. After a few minutes, it came out again and started angling back towards me from behind. This time I let it get about 10 feet away, close enough for me to lunge and grab whatever it was, before I switched on my flashlight again.

I was ready to grab it, butt-stroke it in the jaw with my rifle, whatever seemed appropriate once I saw and identified what it was. I still wasn’t convinced it wasn’t a human being as I had no idea what it could be.

Same thing as before, when I turned on the light, I saw nothing at all as it tore away from me, across the woods back to the creek, with that huge stride and unfathomable speed. At this point I knew I was dealing with something I had no explanation for. It had been close enough to engage hand-to-hand when I turned on my Maglite, and I could hear it, but I couldn’t see it.

This story gets worse later, but in the interest of not writing a book here, I’ll stop as there’s no further identifying info as to what it might have been. The other two hunters that were with me had the same experience, which explained why I heard my buddy crashing through the woods back to camp. He wasn’t cold, he was freaking out.

I’ve heard that Native Americans speak of such a “ghost animal” and heard other hunters tell of the creature in the 4-Peaks/Supes/Salt River Canyon areas. Whatever it is, I have no explanation for it.